Is Russia safe from F-22 and Β-2?

LOL. And Russia has satellites that can see everything and pick up radar signals and triangular its position right after ballistic missile comes in.

All SATs military and civilian, Aircraft Carriers, F22-B2-F35-Pakfa bases, Submarines, shipyards, and many other items will be immediately targeted within half an hour of hostility break out between Russia and NATO. As to how many or what percent would be successful is the question.

I need a weapon system that can kill/deflect the JDAM/JSOW SDBs type items at a safe distance. F15/F111/F16 etc. can bomb all day and night and return home all depleted and tired........while the troops coloumn moves on to........GET THE JOB DONE

Do not even want to discuss "1 Glory" kill of F-117 which was a result of a shot gotten more lucky than the megamillion lottery ticket.

Luck? No it was a resourceful and smart SAM crew. At the end of the day, an ancient SAM with no network support downed something that was supposed to have avoided it with ease. The implications on F-22/35 attacks on Russia are well worth the thought imo.

Shot down 1 F-117 by flight path information and then flooding the area matrix with missiles

I realize that the degree of "corruption" in your mind ,likely originated by years after years of pantagruelic idiocies read over and over on low level open media, has left very deep scares in your mind ,but please try to concentrate ,ok ?

The battery Commanded by Zoltan Dani , downed one F-117 , very heavily damaged another F-117 deviating from its route to bomb the downed F-117 wreckages (it managed with a great amount of luck to complete an emergence landing), downed an F-16C and damaged beyond any repair an F/A-18 and an A-10 and forced several times the strike groups in its momentary area of operation to abort theirs mission ; all of that employing a single battery of the export version of ....SA-3 and as you well know an SA-3 can be shoot only on vs aircraft on which you have obtained a radar lock for fire solution. Zoltan Dani, a passionate of Soviet Air Defense systems and tactic who loved to collect open and some slightly restricted publications on those subject, simply make some (almost home made !!) modifications to its SA-3 battery to render it more near to the original Soviet domestic version and employed some of the tactics the Soviet operators of its equipment had used with deadly efficiency against Israel in years of Attrition War ; so Z. Dani operated to render its battery almost a semi-mobile one moving frequently and at random pace for great distances for the whole NATO Air Campaign and employing (always in observance to '60 years Soviet Air defense doctrine) false SAM sites and Sokolov-type improvised radar decoys. Its performace is the living proof of the heavy weight of training an proficiency of the military operator on the final results achieved even when equipped with a strongly downgraded version of a system 30 year old. The result of Zoltan Dani's efforts was that ,in spite that more than an hundreds HARM was shoot against its battery and numerous attempts to carry out SEAD-DEAD missions against its battery (the suppression of this "damned SA-3 battery coming from the hell itself" became a primary task for NATO's SEAD/DEAD assets) was attempted it don't suffered even only a single casualty or material loss in the entiure conflict !!! Voctor7 the reality is much more simple : NATO attack in big coalitions using numerical and technical overwhelming forces and assets (naturally with linked costs and times of deployment totally incompatible with a large scale conflict against a world level opponent..) and often after some years of crippling embargo only immensely inferior third world opponents equiped with downgraded export version of weapons 15-30 years older than theirs ,therefore also their tactics and doctrine is shaped against this type of very unbalanced conflicts.If you want i can explain what was the implications of this factor in the solutions adopted by Zoltan Dani.

why did not they develop technologies to export to others who are on the list of 'bad guys' for the US.

For the same exact reason for which Soviet avoided attentively to sell to Middle East clients likely to confront western opponents T-72s with a performance level matching even only that of the first version of T-72A , or up to '90 years MiG-29s with level even only matching that of first Soviet version or why URSS has never employed in any past war against inferior opponent any type of theirs most crucial or very advanced weaponry

If you search the nation of Image and Hollywood you must see on the other side ...on this side there was the country where image had zero value (rather it can be used to deceive the enemy... Maskirovko anyone? ) and only maximum overall efficiency had importance :You can easily realise that those same NATO's Gulf War veteran that had confronted in GW1 Iraqi T-72, in an hypothetical conventional conflict in Europe against ,only to the appearance, identical Soviet T-72 would have discovered ,with horror, that them was practically invulnerable to all the anti-tank weapons present in NATO arsenal at the time directly on the battlefield ,only few second before being systematically massacrated . That was in an example of efficiency in typical Soviet mindset.

victor7 wrote:Do not even want to discuss "1 Glory" kill of F-117 which was a result of a shot gotten more lucky than the megamillion lottery ticket.

Its a story about undetectable aircraft being detectable, tracked and shoot down and eventually pulled out of service. Yes after one being shot but after its pieces being exported to Russia and China.

victor7 wrote:First find me a way to detect, track and kill F22s from 200km or better 400km, then come and talk about how big chunk of USAF it can gobble up within half an hour. That S400 can track subsonic stealth cruise missile at 60kms is somewhat of a relief. It can always find a way to kill it or go silent and scooter away a couple of miles to safety

You are being illogical. Let me put this question vise versa.Can you prove me S-400 can not track F-22 at 400km or some other radar associated with S-400?

victor7 wrote:UK is soon launching Sea Ceptor missile by 2015 that would be an answer to Moskits and Yakhonts. Also, Type 45 destroyer has L-Band SMART-L radar and others which can require a salvo of 8-12 ASMs before the boat is hit. The problem with Russian mindset is they develop something and then sit and enjoy it over several days of vodka and go to sleep for a whole week. The west builds something and after a very short break, goes onto further improving and devicing mode.

You completely missed the point of my saying. The point is that each side be it Russia, US, China has some card that can play batter than others but that still does not give them confidence going around the world and attacking major players. For a reason. So while you are saying F-22 can do wonders for US, any Russian can say Granit missile can make wonders for Russia.

btw ... few things to remember.

1. West in general is still no where near Russian air-defense systems and has still much catching up to do. Russians are not sitting around drinking votka as you said but building systems that are top tier. Do a little research and compare the systems and you will get the idea.2. Sea Captor is the last missile you will want to defend with anything when facing Granit wolf pack. It just shows how little you know about Russian systems.

victor7 wrote:thanks for the info on terminal velocity of JDAMs. This means even a small CIWS type gun can kill these at a distance that exploding bomb does no harm.

Yup. Sweden/US/Germany produces such systems for airfield/base protection but still they dont have anything on Tor-M1 level.

victor7 wrote:Look at the article above from ausairpower. Killing off the weapons launched from birds at 40K feet is becoming real real requirement. Otherwise, in half an hour a whole moving coloum of 500 soldiers and two dozen tanks will be reduced to rubble

You can destroy missiles or platforms and for each of them you have option using from small MANPAD to big one like S-300.

No big deal and dont see why this concerns you so much. Its not like that kind of threat did not exist from 40 years ago.

You can destroy missiles or platforms and for each of them you have option using from small MANPAD to big one like S-300.

The stage where legacy planes are hitting the small brigade size troop formations is after when major SAMs and air forces have been taken out. MANPADs can help only against 15K high frequent fliers.

Speaking from the perspective of nations like Iraq, Serbia and others.......In last 40 years, US via USAF has time and again proven its ability to gain total air supremacy and win 90% of the war from air alone. So either develop a capability to deny this total supremacy or develop a way to kill off the bombs and missiles that this supremacy launches. I believe later is more practical and cheaper method. The utility of MANPADs was a major lesson from the Serbian war. While manpad issue has been discussed in this thread in detail, but it would be awesome to have these hitting the 30K ceiling. Even if it means missile goes to 15K and then some sort of kinetic HE bullet is released that goes another 15K and explodes at or near something that is flying.

your points on NATO ganging up on heavily sanctioned and weakened Third World countries fielding (intentionally) inferior i.e. export model of Russian equipment.....these points are valid and well understood.

However, this logic does not ward off the imminent dangers that F22-F35s pose to RF. If the US wants and is willing to accept the 'ALL' types of costs invovled, then it is in position to launch attack on RF and throw few surprises.

I would repeat my point made earlier, that ICBMs are the ONLY source of offensive threat that RF has now, which is taken seriously by the West. Air Force, Navy, Ground Army etc. were looted, neglected and impoverished in 1990s to the point where even gathering 1 meal a day for foot soldiers had become an issue. Budget allocations were there but Generals and Colonels were pocketing them for vodka and real estate purchases in Europe.

However, this logic does not ward off the imminent dangers that F22-F35s pose to RF.

I have formulated in a previous response a practical scenario :

Wide scale attack to Emordorlf AFB with Kaliber cruise missiles (domestic version of Klub)with penetrating/HE/ with range of 2500 km fired from over 1000 km within Russian Federation border with mobile launchers moreover under the umbrella of the,by far, most powerful and dense IAD at world and Russian Air Force. Time required: no more than 10-12 minutes .Even only the most external node of Russia eastern multilayered IAD would find the neutralization of a similar attack even a trivial task.Now with what type of multilayered IAD and with what assets USA, instead, can prevent that this attack would reduce this critical air base ,with all its F-22s and E-3, to nothing more than a silent sprawl of smoking craters ?

Just for let you figure ,in Operation Desert Storm for attack ,from Sud, Kari (the French-made Iraqi IAD ,literally hundreds of times weaker than the most weak node of URSS IAD of the time anbd designed to defend Iraq from attacks coming from East and West) was necessary for NATO coalition seven months of logistical airlift and aircraft transfer to the Sau8di Arabia airfileds ; try only to image what would have happened if Iraq instead of 12 operative Tu-16/H-6 devoid of any stand-off arsenal would have operated a fleet of 70-80 long range bomber capable to employ stand-off cruise missiles or would have owned merely a significative amount of more precise intermediate Ballistic missile arsenal . Even only transfer the required equipment and aircraft in the theatre would have literally impossible and a true suicide.

Victor7 i image that you now realize more clearly why those type of weapons (long range ballistic and cruise missile) are strictly controled in International Weapon Control Agreement ,while F-22 , PAKFA or J-20 are NOT

Last edited by Mindstorm on Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:08 am; edited 1 time in total

I would repeat my point made earlier, that ICBMs are the ONLY source of offensive threat that RF has now, which is taken seriously by the West. Air Force, Navy, Ground Army etc. were looted, neglected and impoverished in 1990s to the point where even gathering 1 meal a day for foot soldiers had become an issue. Budget allocations were there but Generals and Colonels were pocketing them for vodka and real estate purchases in Europe.

The 90s are gone my friend. The situation is incomparably better. Plus, why is Russia expected to compete with the entirety of the "west", that is, a huge assortment of nations. Given what the Europeans are doing to their defense establishments, Russia is looking just fine!

Also, the notion that ICBM is the only threat is ridiculous. Do cruise missiles, both air/sea/ground based not exist?If we are talking about the West as in America, then the nuclear deterrent based strategic nuclear weapons is enough. Even then the conventional forces are more than strong enough to prevent Russia from being messed with like smaller nations.

Plus, why is Russia expected to compete with the entirety of the "west", that is, a huge assortment of nations. Given what the Europeans are doing to their defense establishments, Russia is looking just fine!

That is the hard fact of life for Russia after WWII. Do you think US will want to fight alone, nopes, it will bring with itself the whole of NATO plus Australia plus Canada and others like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Georgia, Japan, S. Korea etc. Who will come to help Russia out? China? not unless their interests are directly on line. India? too weak and same reason as China, personal interests first. Arabic friends? they will not make much a difference. Just like Cuba and Venezuela will not either.

The good news is, there are already cracks in NATO as seen in Libya to some extent. Also, fear of punishment by Russia should make NATO nations in Europe think twice as they are much near to be repeatedly nuked upon.

Russian high command has openly said that Russia will not fight the whole of NATO and will resort to using nukes very early in the event of war. That makes sense.

strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ visit this link for indepth analysis from US Army pros. They had one article recently on VDV and info below is from that article.

Russian military situation is only a grade better than 90s. From D grade to C at best. Generals in Georgia 2008 were talking via cell phone and an fast advancing VDV squad had to be chased by a jeep to let them know that taking Tbilsi was not to be taken over anymore and they should turn back to Ossetian theater. Also, but for VDV, the Russian Army would have taken not 5 but 15 days to settle the matter in its favor. Even some VDV companies had ammo run out. RuAF could not even jam its own Buk-M1s and had Tu-22 shot down. Many such small operational chinks in armor show the level of preparedness and depth which is in bad shape.

Future hi tech weapons that they are actually building. Link from 2008 so must have added some more.

The problem with mounting a laser in a C-130... is that a C-130 can be shot down.

Any laser you can put in an aircraft, you can put in a ground vehicle but with a lot more power because it can be plugged in to the local electricity grid. More importantly a ground vehicle is easier to protect from the airborne laser than the aircraft can be protected from the ground based laser.

Regarding the rail gun, I remember them working on them decades ago, they had gotten to mach 5 and claimed in no time they'd have it well beyond mach 12. The problem was they thought all they had to do was increase the power and the extra speed would come. What actually happened is that they increased the power and the railgun started melting. So instead of accelerating a small aluminium puck to mach 12 it was accelerating a small aluminium puck and lots of plastic and bits of metal from the inside of the weapon to mach 4.

The plastic was the insulation from the wires and when the bare wires started shorting out they got even worse performance.

The main problem is that these systems launch very very light projectiles at very high speed. Try throwing a helium filled balloon and you will work out that air has density and for a projectile to travel through the air it needs both mass an energy to push aside the air in front of it. An aluminium puck has plenty of energy at mach 12, but its lack of mass means it wont keep it for long.

The other problem is that objects at such speeds tend to shatter in their first impact.

Experiements in shielding satellites from rocks from space found instead of one really thick sheet of metal that two relatively thin widely spaced sheets was the best solution as the projectile hits the first sheet and is literally vapourised, so having a large space behind it lets the material spread out so when it hits the second sheet it covers an area of about a metre and spreading tiny fragments over that area means it doesn't have the energy or mass to penetrate the next sheet... and this is with an object that will penetrate a single sheet 50mm thick.

Military robots?

Even the Russians have those in development and production... they have actually been in use for years in demolition and fire fighting.

BTW these rods of god I did not know about, the US has been talking about putting DU rods in ICBMs and SLBMs to have a global capability within a reasonable time frame.

The problem with dropping them from satellite, is that like pennys from the empire state building that the earths atmosphere will slow them down.

7,000 mph is nothing like the speed of a meteorite.

Satellites orbit the earth in about 90 minutes, so if there is only one satellite with these weapons then it might take days for it to pass over the spot on Earth they want to hit, and it will be known by everyone when the satellite is overhead and in a position to launch... being inside a large building would be protection enough as the impact damage would be restricted to an area of a fairly small room.

And the disc thing is just a variation of a cruise missile/anti tank missile.

The cost of making thousands of them, but also making them intelligent enough to recognise friend from foe and target vs innocent civilian, or statue for that matter will drive up the cost.

To fly, they will need to be relatively lightly constructed, plus I rather suspect that models designed to kill humans would actually violate landmine agreements.

It would be a great day out with the shotgun however...

Shot down 1 F-117 by flight path information and then flooding the area matrix with missiles............and that proved the ability to see stealth for the end of time.

If the missiles didn't guide why use SA-3s? Wouldn't it have been much more efficient to use Grads... with barometric fuses operating at the height the F-117 flew at?

I could tell you the flight path of an civilian airliner and let you control a thousand SAM batteries that weren't allowed to use their search or tracking radars and you could launch all of those missiles, with some before the plane should arrive and most during and then some after to cover for the chance it might be late or early and your chances of hitting the target would be so low as to be zero.

The thing is that you can't launch an SA-3 without a lock in the first place.

It wasn't luck that a missile killed an F-117.

Flying the same route over and over again is not a mistake if no one can detect you.

Missiles don't hit by accident.

It is not an accident that the F-117 has been withdrawn from service.

It is also not an accident that the first mission of Desert Storm was to send in Apache helicopters to take out some long range radars before they even sent in their F-117... why send in slow vulnerable helicopters if the F-117 could have done the job much faster... unless of course that radar could spot the F-117s and could have alerted fighters to go up and shoot them down with cannon and IR guided missiles...

Best counter point is 'if so, the why did not FRY shoot down more Stealths' and why did not they develop technologies to export to others who are on the list of 'bad guys' for the US.

The US had full recon info about where the SA-3s were and planned their stealth flights around them. After a few bombing raids in a row by aircraft that were not tracked the Serbs worked out it was probably stealth aircraft and secretly moved a few SA-3s to where they thought the flight path was.

On the night in question during the period the previous raids took place they turned on their new SAMs and got enough of a lock to launch some missiles... one of which got the kill.

Not luck, good planning and tactics.

With much more advanced SAMs and radars, and of course a functioning airforce NATO wouldn't have even started.

End of it, the most vulnerable items like Tanks, BMDs, Troop trucks, Artillery, mobile AAA, Mobile C2s etc. need to be protected in order to do their jobs well. With laser/INS/GPS guided bombing taking place from 40K feet, there is a limit to how much Tor/Buks can do to protect columns on the move.

Tanks and other vehicles get protected with decoys and Nakidka camouflage, and the fact that the recon assets used by the other side to find targets will be shot down, and there will be no aircraft at 40K feet because BUK and Favourite, and soon Vityaz will be shooting them down too.

I am talking about end stage CIWS and cheap and small enough to be installed on each tank, BMD and offer protection of 1 km radius.

Every Brigade has its own organic air defence vehicles, and there are larger longer range air defence units higher up the chain.

The Russian Army has the best air defences in the world... and they are getting better.

At what speed do JDAMs fall? I bet several Machs, so there has to be a way to kill or deflect them before they hit the intended target.

JDAMs glide and are subsonic... the whole idea is horizontal range, not speed.

With this in place the overwhelming advantage of USAF to 'bomb at will' will be mostly gone.

You are confusing Libya with Russia my friend.

The US wouldn't intervene in Georgia what exactly would it attack Russia over?

I would suggest nothing.

F22s can take out S-200/300/400 SAMs and then Tor/Buk and even Pantsirs.

No, it can't. There are simply not enough F-22s to both attack Russia and defend all of NATO and the US from retaliation attacks. Even if they did have enough they don't have a large enough force of them to fly with impunity in Russian airspace without inflight refuelling. Even assuming the S-400 can't shoot down F-22s, and that is not proven, the F-22 doesn't carry a weapon that can reliably penetrate Russian air defences.

However, in next 5 years, US will be fielding robotic warriors good enough to put a dogged fight and meeting full or partial ground objectives.

Technically they are not robots. They are controlled directly by operators... cut the datalink or artillery strike the operators vans.

In 1995, Pavel Grachev the Russian Defense Minister

He is not the first to underestimate their enemy. The second chechen campaign was fairly different from the first however.

So for now, a squadron of F22s can eat up, digest and spit the bones out of............any legacy air force and that includes airforces with Su-35s fielding 60 Km IRST capability.

Where has this fixation with 60km come from?

What makes you think a squadron of F-22s deployed to Europe would go unnoticed by the Russians?

A supercruising F-22 will have an enormous IR signature from its skin from heating via friction with the air it is moving through...

The most revolutionary change which the wide deployment of SAR/GMTI capable radars will bring is the contraction of the targeting cycle.

That article is from 1997 and yet Israel and the US still do everything in their power to stop Russia selling S-300s to Iran... Odd don't you think?

The obvious problem of course is that a bombing radar needs to get closer than 250km from the target it is going to find and bomb.

Do not even want to discuss "1 Glory" kill of F-117 which was a result of a shot gotten more lucky than the megamillion lottery ticket.

If it was luck then why aren't B-2s shot down too?

They are much larger than F-117s so it should be much easier to be lucky with them.

The fact is that the F-117 was detected and shot down because the Serbs used tactics against it.

Normal flightpaths for the F-117 will skirt around radars that will detect it and by having mobile radars planning flightpaths becomes near impossible.

That S400 can track subsonic stealth cruise missile at 60kms is somewhat of a relief.

60km is actually unlikely because of the curve of the earth meaning a low flying cruise missile would be hidden behind the ground between the cruise missile and the S-400 system.

The thing is however that an AD network shares information between ground, air and space based sensors.

The primary weapon of F-22 is AMRAAM... a weapon that has a combat record of less than 50% kill probability against unaware targets that don't have ECM or ESM.

As such I suspect its performance against an Su-35 would be something like 5%.

Now factor in the number of missiles the F-22 can actually carry at once and considering the numbers of Su-35s are likely going to increase over time, while F-22 numbers are not, and that T-50 will be entering service shortly as well, which will not even need to jam AMRAAM as its RCS will be too small for AMRAAM to get a lock at any range and then I start to ask the question of why bother with F-22... it is little to no threat and it is walking through a minefield of ground based SAMs and radars that will rip it a new one.

The west builds something and after a very short break, goes onto further improving and devicing mode.

Yes, the west is always coming out with brand new revolutionary things... but the M16 is older than the AK-74, their Harpoon is older than most Russian in service anti ship missiles, the Abrams tank is from the early 1980s, and the Bradley is a copy of a BMP-2 with a weaker armament and no amphibious capability.

BTW the French and Germans planned to make the ANS in the 1980s and they still haven't made it.Ironically its specs... 700-800kgs, flight speed of mach 2, combined rocket ramjet propulsion, 100km range... in other words for the last 30 years on and off they have been planning to build a Kh-31.

UK is soon launching Sea Ceptor missile by 2015 that would be an answer to Moskits and Yakhonts.

hahahahaha... It is British... they will cancel it.

Besides it is a replacement for Seawolf... which was supposed to be able to shoot down all Russian AShMs anyway...

This means even a small CIWS type gun can kill these at a distance that exploding bomb does no harm.

More likely TOR will have destroyed them 10km away from the ground unit they were likely being used against...

Look at the article above from ausairpower. Killing off the weapons launched from birds at 40K feet is becoming real real requirement. Otherwise, in half an hour a whole moving coloum of 500 soldiers and two dozen tanks will be reduced to rubble.

Air power has been promising to be able to win wars on its own since WWII. They are wrong.

Camouflage, jamming, decoys, and of course enemy air power will all be working against them.

Remember this is the same group that promise surgical strikes are possible... when was the last time a surgeon used a hand grenade as a tool?

They have certainly come a long way from WWII where the target was a ball bearing factory and the result was 50,000 dead in the nearby town of women and children and old men, but even today to get one guy they end up killing everyone on the city block.

The thing is that it is more than just weapon specs, your intel needs to be accurate too... and we know how pathetic western intel can be.

I need a weapon system that can kill/deflect the JDAM/JSOW SDBs type items at a safe distance. F15/F111/F16 etc. can bomb all day and night and return home all depleted and tired........while the troops coloumn moves on to........GET THE JOB DONE

And you have been told, Pantsir-S1 or Tor plus a decent long range SAM like S-300 against the planes you list above or S-400 for F-22 and F-35. The F-111 is no longer in service. F-15 and F-16 wouldn't last 10 minutes over an S-300 battery.

Speaking from the perspective of nations like Iraq, Serbia and others.......In last 40 years, US via USAF has time and again proven its ability to gain total air supremacy and win 90% of the war from air alone.

The skies over Serbia and Kosovo were as dangerous from day one to the last day... something like day 74. The guy running the air power for NATO said they had run out of targets and could nothing to stop the ethnic cleansing... they would see a fire start in an albanian village in Kosovo and watch it spread to every house and there was nothing they could do.In the end the US had to trick the Russians into asking the Serbs to surrender by letting the Russians think they would be involved in the peacekeeping operations.I believe Madeline Allbright said before the conflict that it would take less than a week for NATO to defeat the serbs.Listening to news reports during the conflict the NATO airpower wiped out the Serbian Army and air defence forces several times over, yet at the end they had lost very little.

So either develop a capability to deny this total supremacy or develop a way to kill off the bombs and missiles that this supremacy launches. I believe later is more practical and cheaper method.

That is the fundamental flaw in your logic. If big strong bullies could be easily defeated then they would be.

The US and the West has spent hundreds of trillions of dollars on being able to go places and destroy military forces. It is a necessary thing for them to be able to install friendly puppet states and control resources to keep the gravy train flowing.

You don't think some magical shoulder launched missile is the solution to all these problems do you?

Instead of building this magical and impossible missile, what real air forces have actually done is develop ways of defending their larger SAMs like using decoys, and jammers, and locating smaller SAMs able to shoot down weapons that might be used against the larger SAMs, and lots of other things like making everything mobile and moving every once in a while.

The real thing that stops F-22s and F-35s is the ability to nuke the US... tried and true for 50 years.

However, this logic does not ward off the imminent dangers that F22-F35s pose to RF. If the US wants and is willing to accept the 'ALL' types of costs invovled, then it is in position to launch attack on RF and throw few surprises.

But that is the point... the US has been in a position of superiority over the Soviets a couple of times but is not ready or willing to take the plunge.

A war with Russia would economically kill the US... no one will trade with the country that starts WWIII.

The F-22 has neither the range or weapon set to be able to significantly effect Russias nuclear deterrent. Even if they shot down every Russian aircraft the nuclear retaliation would destroy the US completely as a functioning country. And for what? What does the US benefit from shooting down a few Russian fighters?

I would repeat my point made earlier, that ICBMs are the ONLY source of offensive threat that RF has now, which is taken seriously by the West.

So ultimately your problem with Russian forces is that they are not able to invade Europe or the US?

If that is the case then I am glad, because the problem of keeping up with the US and NATO is that it would bankrupt Russia and is simply not worth the effort.Your suggestion that Russias nuclear forces are the only thing standing between safety and US invasion is naieve.

The US liking not being radioactive will suffice to make Russias nuclear forces sufficient for the role... the cost to get the same effect with conventional forces would require Russia to invest at least 75% of what NATO spends and that is simply not an option.

Russia is not communist any more and has no political system to spread.

It can certainly take a larger role internationally but I doubt they want the role of world police that the US so eagerly takes when it wants to have its way somewhere.

Do you think US will want to fight alone, nopes, it will bring with itself the whole of NATO plus Australia plus Canada and others like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Georgia, Japan, S. Korea etc. Who will come to help Russia out?

NATO is a defensive organisation that is at its heart a bureaucracy. In the regime change conflict against Iraq the NATO member Turkey chose not to take part, and I rather think in a conflict against Russia that the majority of NATO countries will also refrain from taking part too.

Ironically the states most likely to be keen would also be likely to decline because they have the most to lose like the Baltic republics that could have Russian forces marching onto their territory in hours.

Goergia joining is unlikely too as it will likely be invaded by the forces Russia has already positioned in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia wouldn't need help... it would simply launch a nuclear strike at all the parties ranged against it before they could take out its nuclear strike capability.

The good news is, there are already cracks in NATO as seen in Libya to some extent. Also, fear of punishment by Russia should make NATO nations in Europe think twice as they are much near to be repeatedly nuked upon.

Perhaps you are viewing things from an alternate reality... the US and EU are on the brink of economic collapse... with the EU situation absolutely hilarious because all those countries that are in enormous debt are in enormous debt to France and Germany! In other words the best off countries in the EU are owed by the worst off countries and the solution of financial aid further shifts that imbalance!!!

The EU is a house of cards where the poor owe the rich enormous amounts... which makes you wonder even if the poor could pay are the rich considered rich because of what they already have or because of what they are owed.

If they cancel all the debt is the EU rich or poor?

And you think they will try to invade Russia?

They can't even work up the gumption to invade Syria let alone Iran... but you think they might invade Iran.

Russian military situation is only a grade better than 90s. From D grade to C at best. Generals in Georgia 2008 were talking via cell phone and an fast advancing VDV squad had to be chased by a jeep to let them know that taking Tbilsi was not to be taken over anymore and they should turn back to Ossetian theater.

At a tactical level there were problems. Many were using civilian GPS for navigation, but the US turned off the civilian signal in the region for the period of the war. Didn't effect the Georgian side as they were using the military signal. Reminded the Russian forces why they invested in Glonass though.

However it was clear that the investment had to be more than just putting up satellites. They also had to equip their forces with sat nav in their vehicles and hand held devices.

Having said that major NATO countries are in the same boat at the moment... Germany, France, the UK, rely on GPS and for any reason the US might turn it off or turn it down.... depending on their interests.

Despite all the deficiencies in C4IR the rag tag thrown together 58th Army cut through the better prepared NATO trained Georgian forces like a knife through hot butter... against all western forecasts.

Western forces were surprised they even mobilised that quickly in the first place.

Many such small operational chinks in armor show the level of preparedness and depth which is in bad shape.

The region... operationally is a backwater. It would be like complaining that the USAF is crap because the ANG failed to shoot down any of the planes that were hijacked on 11/9.

The South Ossetia issue was settled in 5 days... whether the VDV were critical to that success is moot... that is like saying Desert Storm took 8 months for air power but x number of days with ground forces therefore air power is useless. Or Kosovo took NATO air power alone over 2 months to sort out with the loss of a 2 hundred million dollar stealth bomber and most of NATO.

strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil

Different militaries draw different conclusions from similar incidents.

For instance the claim in the blurb was that the VDV was saved from reform by the relationship between its commander and Putin.I would say the VDV evaded cuts in the reforms because the VDV is basically the sort of force the Russian Army needs and many parts of the reform are designed to turn the Soviet Army from a huge slow force into a lighter more self sufficient, and mobile force with heavy firepower... like the VDV.

The west doesn't have anything like the VDV, the VDV is fully motorised and armoured and this armour and mobility sets it above western airborne forces that have to be dropped much closer to their target, which makes them orders of magnitude more vulnerable.

Plus, why is Russia expected to compete with the entirety of the "west", that is, a huge assortment of nations. Given what the Europeans are doing to their defense establishments, Russia is looking just fine!

That is the hard fact of life for Russia after WWII. Do you think US will want to fight alone, nopes, it will bring with itself the whole of NATO plus Australia plus Canada and others like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Georgia, Japan, S. Korea etc.

Oh come on, that's a ridiculous scenario to plan for. One that has no chance of ever coming into reality because of a hundred factors.

Russian military situation is only a grade better than 90s. From D grade to C at best. Not true at all. Readyness of units due to reforms and cuts is magnitudes better. Pilot air times is exponentially better.

Generals in Georgia 2008 were talking via cell phoneReally? Generals? You have proof? There was a claim of some Russian unit using cellphones..and the Georgians using cellphones as well. THat does not translate to Russian generals had to use cellphones. and an fast advancing VDV squad had to be chased by a jeep to let them know that taking Tbilsi was not to be taken over anymore and they should turn back to Ossetian theater.I am goign to ask for proof again, because I have heard nothing at all of this. Also, but for VDV, the Russian Army would have taken not 5 but 15 days to settle the matter in its favor. Nonsense. There were ready units who deployed across from North Ossetia, in fact before the VDV was even thrown over. VDV or not the Georgians panicked because air power nailed them.

Even some VDV companies had ammo run out.Assuming it actually happened...And that shows...what? The response was hurried, were were they supposed to get huge ammo supplies in the middle of Georgia? The very nature of the vast VDV deployment is impressive.

RuAF could not even jam its own Buk-M1s and had Tu-22 shot down. Right, because the response was hurried and initially uncoordinated. The RuAF did not have the luxury of months of planning like the USAF has in every campaign. Also the Tu-22 was used stupidly, at a bad altitude. Easily fixed, dont fly it that low

Many such small operational chinks in armor show the level of preparedness and depth which is in bad shape.

I don't want to take this off topic, but if you want to get some good info, not rumors, on Russian army and changes since 90s, read "The Tanks of August" and that Russian Military reform by CAST.

The west doesn't have anything like the VDV, the VDV is fully motorised and armoured and this armour and mobility sets it above western airborne forces that have to be dropped much closer to their target, which makes them orders of magnitude more vulnerable.

At the airborne deployment level, the western armies do not have heavy lift capabilities or rather doctrine of the VDV and in that sense they are unique. VDVs can deploy their own tanks, bmds etc. and cut/smash their way through without external help. VDV performance in Georgia was pretty good no doubt about that.

On the other light, if taking VDVs as few division of semi special operations forces, then US sure has the Marines as an answer and in bigger number too I think. Infact the future planning of US Army is more towards special forces type structures and cut down on regular troops.

Russia wouldn't need help... it would simply launch a nuclear strike at all the parties ranged against it before they could take out its nuclear strike capability.

Russia can get help from Belarus and other CSTO nations. Kazakhstan has substantial portion of its army operated by ethinic Russians.

Ukraine, China and India can be of good help especially in diverting the resources of western armies and smashing their illegitimate poodles jumping around. They will however need to think strategically rather than selfishly.

North Korea will certainly help especially if China is invovled and S. Korea helping the west.

Inclusion of Israel will turn the whole Arab/Islamic world opposite to western forces.

But that is the point, I very much doubt anyone would join the US in attacking Russia, and I really don't think the US would risk attacking Russia in the first place... they simply have too much to lose.

Even one Russian nuke taking out a major US city would kill tens of millions of people... keep in mind that in WWII the US lost less than a quarter of a million men.

They talk tough with their Independence day movies and Red Dawn, but when push comes to shove hit them really hard and they would likely collapse into small independent states on a level with third world countries today.

In 1999 war in FRY, Serbs have no problem to see stealth B-2 and F-117 with their old metric wave radars

Shot down 1 F-117 by flight path information and then flooding the area matrix with missiles............and that proved the ability to see stealth for the end of time.This impracticality scares me and hope RuAF does not think like that. Best counter point is 'if so, the why did not FRY shoot down more Stealths' and why did not they develop technologies to export to others who are on the list of 'bad guys' for the US.

This brings me to another crucial point. Not only Russia has to develop ways to see, track and kill stealth at longer distances, it also has to develop more robust defenses for the next layers of the IAD. End of it, the most vulnerable items like Tanks, BMDs, Troop trucks, Artillery, mobile AAA, Mobile C2s etc. need to be protected in order to do their jobs well. With laser/INS/GPS guided bombing taking place from 40K feet, there is a limit to how much Tor/Buks can do to protect columns on the move. Pantsirs seem nice but they are expensive. If MANPADS can't kill 40K birds then there has to be tech to kill off the JDAM/JSOW/SMACM and other launched. I am talking about end stage CIWS and cheap and small enough to be installed on each tank, BMD and offer protection of 1 km radius. At what speed do JDAMs fall? I bet several Machs, so there has to be a way to kill or deflect them before they hit the intended target. Be it Laser/Small Missile/CIWS or whatever. With this in place the overwhelming advantage of USAF to 'bomb at will' will be mostly gone. F22s can take out S-200/300/400 SAMs and then Tor/Buk and even Pantsirs. But ability to deny their weapons reaching moving troops and machines will force their hands out of the game. However, in next 5 years, US will be fielding robotic warriors good enough to put a dogged fight and meeting full or partial ground objectives.

Developing the end stage defenses will be a boost for the Russian defense industries. Nations will have to put $100M to buy a couple of Su-35s but for the same amount they can have enough goodies to protect a small coloum of thousand troops and dozen tanks moving into a area and getting the job done.

I would say you are not very familiar with air defense. First of all, you are mixing guns and missiles. If F-117 was hit by AA gun, than yes, it is lucky hit, because the old guns, which Serbs used could only make barrage artillery fire, because they could not see target at night. Missiles are not fired in that way. SAM's radar or optical system have to track the target, that missile could be launched. Missile launch is only final act in the chain of air defense procedure, which air defense personnel have to do before launching. SAM-3 battery hit F-117 three times, ones it was shot down, twice it was damaged. Missiles were old, so we do not know if in those cases warheads and fuses worked correctly, that F-117 was only damaged. It's true, that Serbs worked in the most heavy electronic warfare environment with heavy SEAD/DEAD support, that no other opponents ever see. Of course they also use visual observation posts and optical system in SAM-3, but this is part of strategy and tactics and it works.

Stealth idea is not new and stealth counter measures also not. Metric wave radars are one of the answers and there are also others. Russian has developed ways to see, track and kill stealth at longer distances and they have very strong ground forces air defense (PVO SV) with S-300V, Buks, Tors, Tunguskas, etc.

Tanks are not ships, that you could place CIWS on them. They have supporting air defense batteries and for CIWS role, ZSU-23-4 with modernized radar, Tunguska and Pantsir-S1 are perfect systems. You could also count here Tor-M1/M2 and future Morfei. Also JDAMs are not missiles but guided bombs and they don't have rocket engines to get higher speed, so they don't fly faster than plane at the time of bomb release, so they fly subsonic, what is less than 1 Mach. As I know only Mig-25RB was designed with special bombs to bomb with supersonic speed. Other planes fly slower than 1 Mach for bombing.

Also JDAMs are not missiles but guided bombs and they don't have rocket engines to get higher speed, so they don't fly faster than plane at the time of bomb release, so they fly subsonic, what is less than 1 Mach. As I know only Mig-25RB was designed with special bombs to bomb with supersonic speed. Other planes fly slower than 1 Mach for bombing.

That is why it might be easier to handle JDAMs via some sort of CIWS or hybrid system which is small and cheap enough to be installed on each tank or high value asset. How many JDAMs can a legacy plane like F15/F16 carry, you start knocking off or deflecting even half and whole air bombing concept becomes a much slow affair.

Just read, an F16 can carry 2 to 4 Jdams. F22 can carry upto 8 SDBs. So we are talking in approximate terms 12-16 in total of Jdam/Jsow/Sdb on each bird.

GarryB one of your "idea", expressed on a pasted post in another thread (at which i conceded my agreement point ,responding that it was much more near to reality than what even yourself would believe ) on long range VHF and OTH radars used to guide Air Force units to the interception area of enemy LO/VLO aircraft to be engaged employing IRTS/optronic tracking systems has been confirmed by the publication of an interesting article on a simulation involving F-35 F-18 or F-22 with AWACS in a hypothetical battle against export SU-35 of PLAAF over Taiwan.That is one motivation for which i sustained that your ideas on those subjects (moreover conceived without any specific information but only intuition ) was completely round . Please GarryB read it ,is very interesting .

victor7 you instead don't read it for any reason at world ,ok ?I suggest instead to you to go here

http://www.f-16.net/

Here you will find a wonderful "world", bright, full of good friends where : AIM-120D has 200 km engagement range , F-22 an average RCS in all radar bands of 0,0001 RCS, Ohio class station in Barent Sea just outside Russian ports, USA can ,against a world level opponent, quietly transfer for weeks aircraft and equipment to the airfield in a particular theatre for preparing air attacks (like against the usual immensely inferior opponents that it love to attack) without that them was reduced, in a matter of minutes ,in tiny scrap of smoking alluminium ,USAF aircraft can use JDAM, JSOW or SDB against a mobile IAD, monstrous enemy ground based ELS and EW assets simply...don't exist , F-16 has won against old but "original" Soviet Mig-29A in DACT exercises after Germany reunification with firat hand testimony by part of....some forumists (people sustain the exact contrary with plentiful of factual data at theirs support don't exist too ), CBG can easily defend itself, in plain Ocean, from an saturating attack of highly supersonic Kh-22M/32 delivered at 550/800 km of distance etc..etc..

It is a true Heaven ,believe me. Here instead, to the exact contrary, are only present bad, ignorant people that have not realized that Russian weapons are rusty, antediluvian garbage .Ok ? Good luck.

Don't go to the extremes on both sides. It's not wise to underestimate F-22, F-35 and other birds. It's true, that those stealth planes have very low RCS, but only for X-band radars, in other specters they are well visible. Su-35 is not stealth plane, but it doesn't mean Su-35 is not comparable fighter with F-22. With strong engines Su-35 could also supercruise and with TVC nozzles its agilities are no worse than that of F-22. F-22 is stealth plane, but Su-35 have X-band and L-band radars and IRST as well as some kind of DAS system and ESM, which detect any attack on it. Through data link Su-35 is connected with Russian IADS, so it could get needed info of F-22 position. Stealth capabilities of F-22 will make problem for ARH R-77 missiles to lock on F-22, but for that reason RuAF have IR and IIR homing head for R-27 and R-77 medium range AAMs, what give Su-35 quite same capabilities against F-22 as F-22 have against Su-35. Anyway, fight between F-22 and Su-35 or PAK FA will be decided in dogfight, where pilot's skills are decisive.

That is why it might be easier to handle JDAMs via some sort of CIWS or hybrid system which is small and cheap enough to be installed on each tank or high value asset. How many JDAMs can a legacy plane like F15/F16 carry, you start knocking off or deflecting even half and whole air bombing concept becomes a much slow affair.

May I ask, what you understand under term CIWS, that it could be small and cheap enough to be installed on each tank? Systems like Arena or Israeli Iron fist are not the same thing as air defense CIWS, although there is the same idea behind it.

Btw, does Russia have something like JORN radar that Australia has. Russian radar in Azerbaijan named Gabala, is it as power also. Although in war situation, these are the first items to go like Awacs having 8 minute time span in European theater.

May I ask, what you understand under term CIWS, that it could be small and cheap enough to be installed on each tank? Systems like Arena or Israeli Iron fist are not the same thing as air defense CIWS, although there is the same idea behind it.

There is no use splitting hairs on this or that. Basic idea is to have some sort of fire mechanism on each high value item to deflect bombs and if possible the missiles launched by planes. US has already tested a system which kills a RPG round fired at a tank or bmd. There is another system that is stopping bullets. Although regarding RPG system a Russian weapons expert has developed a dual warhead deal where two rounds are fired. First round gets the system occupied and second round get through to do the damage. Counter tech vrs counter-counter-tech will keep going on. That is the basic part of defense industry or rather human nature.

HERE YOU GO, WHAT AM I RANTING ABOUT ALL ALONG. RUSSIA HAS A ARENA SYSTEM WHICH CANCELS OUT RPGs AND MISSILES FIRED EVEN FROM HELICOPTERS ETC. COSTS $300K. IF IT CAN BE MODIFIED TO KILL THE JDAMS/JSOWS THEN ALL THE CONCEPT OF AIR BOMBING IS A BIG HOLE IN PENTAGON'S BUDGET.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:The Arena system was primarily designed to defeat threats such as the rocket propelled grenade and the anti-tank missile, including newer anti-tank missiles with longer ranges.[11] The active protection system can protect against missiles fired from both infantry carried rocket launchers and from helicopters, which attack the vehicle directly or by overflying it.[18] Modern rocket propelled grenades can penetrate almost 1 metre (39 in) of steel armour, posing a serious threat to tanks operating in environments of asymmetric warfare. Therefore, increased tank protection requires either an increase in armour thickness and weight, or alternatively the use of an active protection system, like Arena.[19]

victor7 wrote:Btw, does Russia have something like JORN radar that Australia has. Russian radar in Azerbaijan named Gabala, is it as power also. Although in war situation, these are the first items to go like Awacs having 8 minute time span in European theater.

Darjal radar in Gabala is for missile defense to detect incoming ICBMs and to track satellites. And yes, Russian have OTH (over the horizont) radars. In the past it was Duga type radar, but now they have Podzolnuh OTH radar, which have around 400 km range. More about Russian and Chinese radars you could read here:

stealth planes have very low RCS, but only for X-band radars, in other specters they are well visible.

Medo you forget another critical element i repeat yuor statement adding it :

"stealth planes have very low RCS, but only for X-band radars, and only for very narrow supercritical head-on angle, in other specters (radar bands) and for multi-inception angles of illumination by part of net-linked opponents they are well visible (read : theirs effective RCS also in X band is several order of magnitude graeter than those promoting figures.)"

Medo have you read the link you have posted in the previous message ?

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/cgi...d=133273&cat=4

Moreover have you ever stoped at reflect why long range cruise -and even more balsitic missiles, are strongly controled and limited in International Arms Control Agreement and aircraft such as PAKFA, or F-35 are absolutely not?